Government fails rural areas in broadband and mobile

The rural affairs select committee says there is not enough government funding to put rural services on par with urban areas

Parliament's Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Efra) Committee has slammed government for being “deeply unfair” in its funding for remote areas of the UK to provide the same services to residents in rural areas as they would get in towns and cities.

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The Commission for Rural Communities was scrapped in 2010 and responsibility for rural issues was taken on by ministers at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) and the newly established Rural Communities Policy Unit (RCPU). As a result, an inquiry was launched by the committee in July 2012 to look at how effective the new system had been at “acting as rural champion in the heart of government” and furthering development in these more remote areas.

Today saw the publishing of its findings, which claimed central government had not been doing its job and needed to act to ensure more funding was reaching the areas where was needed to bring services up to scratch, including broadband and mobile coverage.

Chair of the committee, Anne McIntosh, said: “The government needs to recognise that the current system of calculating the local government finance settlement is deeply unfair to rural areas in comparison with their urban counterparts. This is unacceptable.

“Rural communities pay more in council tax, receive less government grant and have access to fewer public services than people in large towns and cities. Defra must work with colleagues in the Department for Communities and Local Government to ensure that future settlements recognise the premium that exists in the provision of services to rural areas.”

In this report, McIntosh joined other voices in parliament and industry calling for the government and the telecoms giant to be more open about the locations.

“To expedite the roll-out of superfast broadband the government must publish details showing precisely what areas will be covered by BT under the Rural Broadband Programme in order to allow alternative providers to fill in the gaps,” she said.

McIntosh also called for the £300m funding promised by the BBC to go towards rural broadband roll-out in 2015 to be used as soon as it becomes available.

“The government has known about the money from the BBC for some time and has no excuse to delay using it when it becomes available,” McIntosh added.

“Given the problems with the existing rural broadband programme we believe the £300m from the BBC would be best used as a lever to encourage private and community sector capital and expertise to further the roll-out of superfast broadband to rural communities.”

Unacceptable mobile coverage

When it came to mobile, the committee said the lack of coverage in large parts of the countryside was “unacceptable” and criticised the mobile infrastructure project from narrowing its remit. Originally, it aimed to bring coverage to up to six million people, but this has now been changed to 60,000 premises in so-called ‘not-spot’ areas.

McIntosh said: “We are concerned that in focusing on reducing the number of premises in ‘not-spots’, which may already have landline access, large parts of the countryside and those who work in it may still be left without access to mobile technology.”

The DCMS, responsible for both the broadband and mobile projects, defended its record to Computer Weekly, saying it was delivering “a transformation in broadband” and was looking into “more innovative fixed, wireless and mobile broadband solutions” for increasing its coverage.

Computer Weekly contacted Defra for its response to the report but had yet to receive comment at the time of publication.

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Lets get the Government right - this is the UK Government. England unlike the other members of the Union has no Government of its own. While other Governments allocate monies for broadband improvement, money is allocated to local authorities for administration costs. That money is then lost to further broadband, particularly superfast.

How many more millions of words have to be written about the digital circus that DCMS, BDUK run and have failed to deliver or be clear on. Dave get digital real and Maria take stock. With 96,500 premises in Devon and Somerset left out of any funding or not on any plan, taken as an example this is a digital mess.